ns of the
prolix document. Five clerks with rows of hungry teeth, bright,
mocking eyes, and curly heads, lifted their noses towards the door,
after crying all together in a singing tone, "Come in!"

Boucard kept his face buried in a pile of papers--/broutilles/ (odds
and ends) in French law jargon--and went on drawing out the bill of
costs on which he was busy.

The office was a large room furnished with the traditional stool which
is to be seen in all these dens of law-quibbling. The stove-pipe
crossed the room diagonally to the chimney of a bricked-up fireplace;
on the marble chimney-piece were several chunks of bread, triangles of
Brie cheese, pork cutlets, glasses, bottles, and the head clerk's cup
of chocolate. The smell of these dainties blended so completely with
that of the immoderately overheated stove and the odor peculiar to
offices and old papers, that the trail of a fox would not have been
perceptible. The floor was covered with mud and snow, brought in by
the clerks. Near the window stood th

Reviews

A legally dead hero of Napoleon's wars asks a Parisian lawyer to sue his re-married wife to regain his fortune. The lawyer comes to believe the man is who he says he is, and the legal wrangling begins. French law is almost as bizarre as American law (at least M. Chabert didn't have to worry about offending the religious feelings of a corporation). The story becomes less a legal argument than a struggle between extortion, trickery, kindness, and honor.
The story starts slowly with banter among clerks in a law office, and develops slowly, but the characters are excellent, and the ending is quietly sad.

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